


A Very Common Crisis

by beaubete



Category: The Hour
Genre: F/M, Marriage of Convenience, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1487665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bel finds herself in trouble, Freddie will do anything he can to help.  Series 1 AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very Common Crisis

**Author's Note:**

> The second of the two fics I was working on at 221b Con in Atlanta this year. Again, much love and thanks go to everyone who either looked at this while it was being written, provided Beta services, or encouraged me—without all of you, this may not have happened at all, and would definitely be nowhere near what it is today. Spoilery notes available at the end.

[incredible cover--"[a remarkable blind spot](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1653071)" by [beili](http://archiveofourown.org/users/beili/pseuds/beili)]

 

It is Hector’s sweat, sour in her nose, that gives her her first clue.  He lies heavy across her breast, a pleased and boyish grin on his face, and the room is ripe with the scent of sweat, of sex, of her perfume and his aftershave, and with the distant smells of rich red wine and their intimate dinner together: spent candle wax and meat, thick and suddenly greasy-smelling.  Her stomach roils.

“Bel?” he asks, and oh, god.  She barely makes it to the toilet before the beautiful dinner she’s cooked is back.  She heaves in miserable, hot waves while Hector stands back at the door.  The armpits of his undershirt are wet through with exertion; she waves him away frantically as he approaches, and for once he obeys.

When she stands, it’s on legs that quiver for decidedly less fun reasons than usual during his visits.  He smiles soothingly, presses a kiss to her damp brow, and shrugs into his shirt, already distant, already leaving.  “Feel better, then,” he offers, so calm and cool and debonair.  She smiles, weak.

It’s Lix next, eyes on Bel sudden and sticking.  And Lix isn’t known for subtlety, but she’s trying—

“Bel, dear,” Lix starts, but there’s always another story to pay attention to instead, another headline or deadline, and Bel’s got a sinking feeling she knows just what Lix is trying to say, what she’d tell her if only she would listen.  She can’t listen, can’t let Lix say it, won’t let her make it real.  It’s the sympathy on Lix’s face, that sister-feeling as the men in the office buzz around too caught up in the news to catch the world-shattering changes at home.

Sissy slips her a phone number on a folded sheet of type and Bel locks her office door to panic and cry.  She can’t, can’t do so many things but especially can’t bring herself to confirm her worst fears.  To confirm that she’s been so remarkably stupid.

And she knows how she sounds—small and weak and girlish and scared—when she calls her mother, but to her mum’s credit, there’s no censure in her eyes when they meet over stale canteen coffee, no taunting reminders that Bel is too strong and too independent to be making the kind of mistake women have been making for thousands of years, no smug superiority as Bel puts on the thin gown or when she sits with fingers shaking around that hateful piece of paper that will change her life.  Instead she offers an arm, a hand to squeeze, and when the doctor leaves the room to file the paperwork, she talks about options, low and rushed and secretive, but no.  No, the way Bel sees it, there’s only—

She can’t bear the thought of what Clarence will say.  If she puts it off, perhaps—she has three, maybe four months before her body will force a confession.  She wonders: can she keep a secret that long?  Bel feels faint with the prospect.  Four months and she’s never been particularly— _they’ve_ never been particularly discreet.  She can do the maths.  Marnie can do the maths.  Hell, anyone with eyes can do the maths: she’s having a married man’s child.

“You’re looking bonny today, Moneypenny.”  And of course in the depths of her personal troubles, it’s Freddie.  “It’s a lovely look on you.”

“Not today, Freddie.”  It never works.  She always hopes that he will know with that preternatural sense of her moods that he has, will know when he can tease and when he can’t, but he never does.  It’s where his uncanny observation fails him.  His grin widens.

“I’m saying you look very fetching today, Moneypenny.  Paired life suits.  You’ve been glowing like a new wife.”  His words are wry, biting; as always, Freddie’s after soothing his own bruised ego, wants her to deny her relationship with Hector, the relationship that will end when she tells him—the relationship that both she and Freddie, and perhaps even Hector, too, knew was never going to change her life.  Freddie’s eyes are bright with the expectation and Bel—

Bel cracks.

“Oh, god, Freddie.”  The words are low, nearly a moan, and the sly look falls from his face as though he’s been slapped.

“Bel?  What’s wrong?  Did—what did Hector do?”

“I’m in terrible trouble, Freddie,” she says, unable to lift her voice to barely above a whisper.

“You can tell me, Bel.  You know that—it’s you and me against the world, against those Oxbridge types who insist we can’t do it.  I’ll always help you,” he insists, low and urgent.  “Did he—?”

It’s sweet how he can’t bring himself to say it, this cynical boy who’s only just learned what it means for a woman to be _in trouble_ , has just learned that there are men out there who would—laughter bubbles up unbidden and slightly hysterical.  “No, god, Freddie, what kind of monster do you think he is?”

“Then what kind of monster is he?” Freddie asks, waspish and already wounded in his earnestness.

“The fertile kind.”  There it is between them.  His eyes go wide, then shutter as he processes.

“You’re,” he says.  Doesn't say.  She nods.

And the strangest, slowest determination creeps over his face: the look of Freddie in pursuit of a story; the look of Freddie forming a manifesto; the look of Freddie chasing what he knows in his heart to be right.  “What can I do to help you?  I want to.  Tell me.”

“Marry me.”  The words are out before she’s able to stop them.  It’s a half-formed thought, an idle daydream she’s worried at the edges for weeks, her emergency hatch.  It’s left her feeling hollow and guilty each time she’s let herself entertain the thought—as an escape plan, it’s weak at best.  As his best friend, it’s the cruelest thing she’s ever said to him.

He hesitates, forces a smile, and she prepares herself for the inevitable rejection.  There’s already laughter on the tip of her tongue acid hot and sour, burning at her throat.

“Yes.  Of course I will.”  He sounds so firm, and when he covers her shaking hand with his it is calm, fingers dry and familiar.  When she throws her arms around him, he is solid.

::

The door shakes with the force of her slam, the blinds rattling against the glass with staccato fury.  She’s riffling through her desk for the whisky bottle when the door opens behind her.

“No.  Not right now,” Bel says, but Lix closes the door with a decisive snick still standing on the wrong side of it.

“I’ve made some truly staggering mistakes, my dear, and even I have to admit I’m impressed,” Lix says.  “I’ve never taken you to be deliberately cruel before, Isobel Rowley.”

“Please, Lix, not now.”  Bel’s never been one to beg, but her nerves are thin, stretched delicate and wire-taut across the chasm that lies between her personal life and the job she’s always imagined as a career; she sees them pulling tighter, the edges of the precipice on each side crumbling, and clutches the corner of her desk, feeling faint.

“Freddie’s told me—” Lix starts, and Bel can’t handle this, can barely breathe, cutting Lix off with a wave.

“I’ve just come from Clarence, Lix, and I don’t think there’s anything new you could say.  I don’t need to hear it from you, too.  Yes, I’ve been unspeakably stupid.  Yes, I’ve ruined everything.  I’ve damaged the reputation of this programme, ruined my own, betrayed the trust of the people willing to give me a chance and the hard work of the people relying on me.  I’ve been selfish and everyone expected better, and how _dare_ I think that I had the right—that I had the right to—”  Her voice wobbles distressingly.

“Oh, darling,” Lix says, folding.  “You’re not the first to find yourself in this situation.  For as long as men have had cocks they’ve been putting them where they don’t belong and leaving us to deal with the results.”

“I had to tell my _mum_ ,” Bel hisses.  “I remember as a child watching her with the men who paid her bills, how mercenary some of her relationships were.  When I was older, I’d overhear her with her friends—Shirley had had an accident and Joan’s caller beat her—and I felt so _ashamed_ for them, that they’d risk...for a man they didn’t love.  That everything could end for them because of a man they couldn’t see themselves with for the rest of their lives.”

“And can you?  See yourself with him for the rest of your life?” Lix asks, eyebrow cocked and questioning.

“He’s _married_ ,” Bel reminds her, and Lix’s mouth twists strangely.

“Freddie.”  The name sits on the air between them, and Bel contemplates the question for the first time, really thinks about it.  She thinks about Gilbert and Maude and the flat in Zurich, about cuckoo clocks and then false eggs in the nest, about Freddie rearing another man’s child as his own.  She thinks about the patient curl of his lip and the capricious way he responds to hurts but the patience he shows when he thinks no one’s looking, the tender way he cleans up after his dad and that sweet smile when he thinks she’s too drunk to remember in the morning how he pets her hair until she falls asleep.  Yes.  There are few things she’s more sure of, but yes, she could see herself with Freddie around for the rest of her life.  Can’t imagine a life without her best friend there, really, no matter how angry they get at each other and how desperately they’ve tried to hurt each other in the past.

“Yes.  Freddie is...I love him deeply, have done for years,” she says, and Lix’s shoulders relax just a bit.

“And you know that he’ll—that men have desires that may—after the baby, you won’t want,” Lix says confidentially, with all the air of a shared secret, though Bel knows she’s never been married, has never had a child.  

“Of course I won’t keep that from him.  He’s free to have partners if he wishes,” Bel tells her.  Lix’s mouth opens, then closes, interrupted by the sharp rapping at the glass.  It’s Freddie, making faces at them through the window, and Bel laughs, waving him in.  He peers at Lix, curious, then hands over a packet of papers with a reluctant air.

“Clarence wants these back by the end of the week.”  They’re a statement of her intent to marry, a document promising adequate forewarning before requests for maternity leave, all the paperwork to legitimise the child as Freddie’s, at least socially.  “I asked him if they were truly necessary, but he insisted.”  He sounds apologetic.  Lix shoots her a look promising further discussion and leaves.

::

In the end, for all the drama surrounding it, the wedding is a quiet affair, the two of them and her mum, his dad at the registrar to sign a sheet of paper.  It’s not until she’s sitting on the sofa between Freddie and his dad eating dinner and watching the television in the dark that she registers anything different.  She picks at her fish listlessly, and Freddie casts her a weak grin, face lit eerily by the television screen.

“I like the television man,” Freddie’s dad says suddenly, gesturing at the screen with fingers gleaming with grease.  They’re watching Tommy Trinder at the Palladium, pop music on the screen and it only feels a little bit like betrayal to be watching ITV, though the music seems to soothe Freddie’s dad.  “You could be the television man, someday,” he tells Freddie, and Freddie smiles like he’s been punched in the stomach.

“No, I—” Freddie says, picking at his fish before putting it down on the low table in front of him.  “Maybe someday,” he agrees when he sees his dad’s wide eyes, and Bel’s stomach catches up to her.  Her step is brisk as she heads to the water closet their tenants share on the floor, and she’s already retching into the basin when Freddie gets to her, smoothing her hair back, gathering it in one hand to keep it away and clean.  “Sorry, Moneypenny,” he says softly, brushing at her hair with fingertips that feel afraid to touch too hard.  “It’s been a trying day.  I’ll put him to bed and you can get some sleep.”  He leaves her to freshen up in the mirror, only drifting away when she shoos him, and when she comes back to the flat after having rinsed her mouth in the sink she finds him unfolding a blanket on the sofa under the television’s blankly reproachful eye.

“You’ll be in my room for the night,” he tells her, reaching to fluff the pillow awkwardly.  She knows where it is, has been there before, but the stretch of strings and photos of Ruth Elms are surprising.  Freddie turns on the lamp and kisses her cheek, already in his vest for sleep, and leaves her alone to unroll her stockings, tucking the blue garter from her mum into the toe of her shoe with a feeling like mortified embarrassment.  This isn’t how she’d imagined her wedding night: in her wildest dreams, she’d fancied a man like James Bond, dark and sensual, a wedding suite at a fancy hotel and a partner who couldn’t wait to put his hands on her skin.  She imagines Freddie in the parlor under the thin blanket and sighs.  She has perhaps skipped a few steps, got the baby carriage before the horse, so to speak, but she can’t help but dream of a lover as she sinks into the bed to sleep.

Freddie can't leave his father, of course, so aside from a piece of paper, very little changes for them; she goes home to her flat on his arm, for all appearances a young couple in love, but at her door he is chaste kisses to her fingers before disappearing home to his elderly father.  He takes the time to unjam her door for her, at least, and as she quickens he seems more and more torn, fingertips ginger on her abdomen as the baby swells there.  He’s all but given up on Ruth Elms, and Bel feels strange, as though she’s interrupted something each time she sees the smudged newsprint on his wall, snippets of articles and faded photographs hanging limp and unpursued, but Freddie seems dizzy with her, doting and concerned.  He tries to forbid her going up stairs when she trips over the heel of her shoe, but her blistering response straightens him out.

Hector has gone back to Marnie.  It’s Bel's hormones that leave her spinning, sit her sobbing in her office when she—when his wife comes to collect him for dinner; Bel’s never officially broken it off with him, only dealt with his wounded eyes when he looks at the simple ring on her finger and coped with the icy silence between him and Freddie.  She finds herself scolding the both of them, then watches as they pout, Hector amusing himself with the tea girl and Freddie for once burying himself in the story; as things take yet another turn for the worse in Suez, Bel feels so overwhelmed she may scream.  She’s in the stairwell on her way to the canteen when Hector finds her.

“So you and Freddie, eh?” he asks, as though he has any right, and—

Bel sighs, puts on a smile.  “You can tell Marnie her matchmaking worked,” she says lightly.  She’s unprepared for his grip on her arm.

“Did it?  Truly, did it?”  Written on his face is everything she’s been feeling—the pain and the anger and the fear, the loneliness and the maddening want—and everything she’s been trying not to pay attention to.  She wants to rail at him, to tell him that she feels—that they share—

“You’re hurting me,” she tells him instead, pulling back.

“Do you love him?” he demands, and she laughs.

“Does it matter?  Aren’t you married?”

“Of course it matters.”  His hand is a brand on her arm, but he loosens his grip, leaning in to nuzzle her throat.  “I’ve missed you.”

And she can’t help the way she sinks into him, curling her body against his.  It’s familiar, this feeling, as he cradles her to his chest, his mouth hot and possessive and desperately missed.  He has his hands between her thighs before she quite knows what he means to do, and it hits her here in the stairwell as the fluorescent lights glint on the ring on her hand on his shoulder that they’re taking a terrible risk.  Still, she lets him press against her hard, his cock against her inner thigh, and laughs.  It’s the freest she’s felt in months.

There are footsteps at the bottom of the stairs; she glances up at the door to their floor and they break from their clinch, Hector offering a genial arm to escort her down for more coffee and a cigarette.  They grin like naughty children, steal a tobacco-flavored kiss in the shadowed hall before returning to work, promises to meet on each other’s lips as their fingers disentangle.  She has to tell him, knows that she needs to tell him soon before her problem can’t be hidden with a change in wardrobe, but her thoughts are fizzy-sweet like cola, cheered and hopeful and happy.

Freddie’s considering his notebook again when she returns, eyes trained on the dark writing inside and bruised with concentration.  She hopes he’s not falling into obsession again; she’s found his lighter mood pleasant as she deals with everything that’s changed, and she doesn’t know if she can handle it with him distant and moody again.  He sits back to let her perch on his knee, peering at the notebook around her with a tired, drawn expression.  “You should be more careful,” he tells her softly.  “On the stairs.”  It’s ice on her ardour, but he’s being kind, voice helpful and distracted instead of condemning.  “I can only protect you so much.”

And now it occurs to her what it would look like if she and Hector were caught now, how it would damage more than just her own reputation.  It would call Freddie’s own masculinity into question—cuckolded only days into their marriage—would hurt his standing among men, but really, why should that matter?  She bristles, pushing away from him.  “I’ll take that into consideration,” she snaps, and there it is: the fire that’s been missing in their interactions.  He still looks exhausted as he slaps the notebook closed, standing to pace the narrow confines of her office.  He’s been spending too much time here, she realizes, and she knows what it looks like when she closes the blinds while he’s here, wonders if he accepts the pats on the back from the other men for getting his leg over, for marrying the boss, if they ask him crude questions about whether he’s had her on her desk or in the stacks.  He has a freedom she's not afforded, a flexibility and the chance to just walk away that she—  “Are you jealous?” she demands, and his face goes paper white.  “You haven’t brought anyone home—is that what this is?”

“We’re _married_ ,” he manages, and just like that the fight slips from her shoulders to the floor.  Every inch of him is tense and restrained; her skin aches for the soothing press of his hand on her forehead the way he’s come to do when he sees that she’s tired or stressed.  He’s been so patient,  so—and she can’t believe how _stupid_ she’s been to let him make this sacrifice for her, to ask and then look the other way as he gives up his chance at romance, gives up his chance at love for her reputation.

“You can if you want to, Freddie,” she tells him, but even as she says it it feels wrong, some pull in her stomach wanting her to keep him, to keep his attention to herself though she knows it’s not fair.  “Go out.  Meet some nice girl.  I understand. It wouldn’t bother me.”

He recoils as if she’s slapped him, takes his notebook and leaves.

She meets Hector in the hall at the end of a long, painful day and lets him take her home.

::

Freddie’s hands are shaking; he’s hollow-eyed and Bel can’t help the embarrassed creep as she tries to block his view into the flat long enough for Hector to finish tugging on his shirt.  “I tried to call,” Freddie says, as if it’s normal for husbands to have to call before visiting their wives.  None of her neighbors know they’re married.  Lucille down the hall still calls Freddie her brother, asks after him and whether he’s found a young lady, and Bel hasn’t had the heart to tell her the truth, no matter how the girl’s simpering has begun to grate.  They’d be appalled to know what’s happening in her doorway right now, and it’s this thought more than anything that has her grabbing his wrist, dragging him into her flat to shut the door behind him.  He barely seems to register Hector, who has the grace to look at least unnerved by the presence of the other half of the marriage he’s supposedly destroying.  “Mr. Kish is dead,” Freddie says, and Hector’s hands freeze on his buttons.  Bel feels nauseated, falling back to the sofa and for once Freddie doesn’t rush after her, doesn’t try to soothe her or protect the baby; there’s something fragile in the set of his shoulders as he tucks himself into his knees on the armchair.  He doesn’t answer any questions, and even when Bel bids Hector a hasty goodnight, he doesn’t join her on the sofa, but she stays with him all night.

He’s different after that.  Of course he is.  Distant, cool enough—unromantic, and Bel finds herself reaching for the fingers at her waist that aren’t there anymore, grasping at a hand that’s stiff and draws away as soon as it can, twitching at the memory of kisses pressed playful and chivalrous to the back of her hand—that she could begin to wonder if he has a lover until the orders come from above: he’s to stop pestering the Elmses, to leave them to their grief in some semblance of quiet dignity.  She passes her third month of pregnancy in silence, flinching under the doctor’s assessing gaze when she introduces her silent, resentful husband.

She tells Hector the very same day she can no longer fool herself with the bathroom mirror; there’s a lump on her abdomen, smallish now but it’s only going to get bigger.  He laughs.  She storms out, has a cigarette in her office and hates the world until she hears a soft knock at the glass and turns, expecting Freddie.

“Are you?  Really?” Hector asks, eyes and voice soft.  There’s some masculine pride in it, something that plucks at her skin unpleasantly, but she nods.  “It’s mine?  It’s definitely—?”

“Freddie and I haven’t—” she confesses, and Hector pauses.

“That poor son of a bitch,” he swears, laughing.  “I was terribly jealous.”

“Hector!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, brushing at her wrist with his fingertips.

“You might happen to already have a wife,” she reminds him wryly, and his expression sobers.

“I want to help you, Bel.  It’s the least I could do.”

“Freddie’s already taking care of me,” she says, but even as she says it she feels lonely.  She lets him draw her closer until her head is on his shoulder and he can touch her hair.

“Is he?  He seems to be doing a bang-up job from where I’m standing.”

“He takes me to my doctor visits.”

“How?  On his bicycle, like the paperboy?  Let me know when you have them; I’ll drive you.”

“Women without cars have been pregnant before, Hector.”

“Not women carrying my child.”

From then on, it’s sweet, the way Hector dotes on her.  It’s finally gotten around the office—she’s officially _with child_ , and while the official story is it’s Freddie’s—her husband’s—only Lix gives her a pointed look when Hector starts to take care, guiding her into chairs and helping her at doorways.  She imagines, lets herself daydream a world where she and Hector can have the baby, where she’s not supposed to feel ashamed at the heat of his hand in the small of her back and a grown woman can make choices for herself.  Freddie draws back, lets her go with only an, “I wish you wouldn’t.  Not at work,” that leaves her tense and achy when she thinks about it, but it’s hard to focus on that when she’s so blindingly happy.

Marnie is not blindingly happy.  It’s obvious from the short, sharp bursts of her heels on the lino as she taps her foot, from the way she squeezes her buttercup gloves until her knuckles are white, from the taut curve of her lips when she smiles around the cup of tea Bel offers her.

“I had thought you were intelligent, Miss Rowley—Mrs. Lyon,” she corrects herself, dabbing at her lipstick with a handkerchief.  “I thought you knew the way this works.”

“The way—?” Bel asks, trailing off.

“I am not an idiot!” Marnie gasps, then forces herself to calm.  “I do wish you wouldn’t pretend that I am.  I may not be as worldly as you, but I am not—that is to say—did he tell you?  Hector and I can never have children.  I had assumed—he let me believe—that when the time came, we would find someone discreet, a girl in trouble, and no one would ever know that I can’t....  But everyone knows now, don’t they?  Now that they’ve got proof wandering around pretending to be his wife.  And poor Mr. Lyon being so accommodating.”

The insinuation burns at her.  “Leave Freddie—”

“I’ve always believed that Hector would be an excellent father,” Marnie adds, cutting her off.  “And he will be.  Someday.  Not today.  Not to this child.

“Daddy is prepared to write you a generous check, Mrs. Lyon.  It should be more than enough for you to visit your aunt, who’s fallen ill in the countryside.  You could even take your husband with you, though after what you’ve done to him I can’t imagine why he would want to go with you—

"You have a way of wrapping men around your little finger, Mrs. Lyon, that I would find impressive in another circumstance.  Come back in a few months; give him just enough time to forget about you.  You could start fresh—another show, perhaps—and Hector will be gone by the time you return.  I promise you that.”

It’s guilt crawling in her throat like ants, guilt and resentment.  “I—”

“You need time to consider.  I understand,” Marnie says, and when Bel meets her eyes, they are bleak, lashes trembling and stark, but her gaze is steady.  “Talk it over with your husband.  It’s terrible how sometimes we women need the steadying hand of a man to guide us through.”

“Marnie,” Bel says, because suddenly it needs saying, “I’m sorry.  I really am.”

“I am, too.  We could have been friends.  I would have liked that.”

“I would have, too.”

Freddie finds her cold and hurting in the office chair later, and he won’t meet her eyes when he tells her Hector’s gone, whisked away by his wife for a family dinner.  She doesn’t tell him about Marnie’s offer, doesn’t say a word until he ducks out of the room.  He keeps his hands to himself.

And if the whole world is ending for her, she will raze it herself; she lets them go ahead with the skit just to watch the look on Angus McCaine’s smug face when he realizes that the hormonal, overwrought mother-to-be who may be too delicate to make serious decisions about the show has made a decision.  Freddie pulls in his interview at the last possible moment, the skit goes off without a hitch, and down come the lights—it’s over.  There’s no recovering from the damage she’s done, the damage they’ve done, but it’s Clarence, heartbroken Clarence reaming Freddie with every inch of what he’d given to Bel when she’d confessed months ago.  Clarence the spy, Clarence the killer, and Freddie sags under the weight of everything that’s been happening over the last few months.  He flinches when she curls her fingers over his shoulder.

“I’ve been such a fool, Moneypenny,” he says.

“Me too, James.”

::

Freddie’s father dies not a full fortnight later.  She doesn’t know until he calls from the hospital: his father had fallen down the stairs, broken a hip, been sedated long enough to slip peacefully under and never resurface, with Freddie holding his hand through the long hours alone and knowing it was coming.  He collects her from her flat for the funeral, something in him shattered and untouchable, jagged in a way that cuts him inside, though he curls around his broken edges, careful not to touch her.  As they stand at the crematorium, only the two of them and a few of his tenants—Freddie’s, now—she realizes she’s left Freddie on his own too long, let him tuck himself inside his wounded pride until the thick wall of hurt between them feels too dense to move.  After, he collects the small wooden box that was his father once and takes her home.

To her surprise, he passes the familiar dark door at the bottom of the stairs, leading her up until they are at the top and opening the door of an airy garrett, cozy for its smallness and still smelling faintly of fresh paint.  It’s crisp and lovely, nearly unfurnished but for the mattress on the floor of the yellow painted room.  The doors are still off their hinges, leaning haphazardly against the walls and piled on the floor of the parlor, but he turns to her with a small smile at the corner of his mouth.  “I’ve been sleeping in the nursery.  It’s the only one that doesn’t smell of paint—at least not as much.  I was hoping to have more finished before I brought you back here.”

It’s—  Her only excuse for the tears is that it’s been a long day; she lets Freddie fold her into an embrace as she is overcome.  “Freddie, you—?”

“I thought the two of you could stay here,” he murmurs into her hair.  His fingers tighten on her shoulder.  When she looks, he seems about to say something, but stops.

“Will you not be staying with us?” she asks carefully.  It’s not as though she doesn’t deserve this sudden coolness, this—

“I’d rather assumed you’d want the privacy,” he says, and his laugh is bitter.  She stares—and _oh_.  Oh, how did she not see—?

“I’m not with Hector anymore,” she tells him.  His throat bobs as he swallows; his eyes flick away from her face.

“I know.  Privacy for—you might find someone else.”

He hasn’t brought anyone home.  No, he’s sat by, quietly, patiently—  “Don’t you want—?” she asks, because now that she sees it, honestly _sees_ it, she can’t miss it in every moment, in every breath between them since this stupid farce of a marriage began—since before—  He turns to her with wounded, feral eyes.

“Of course I do.  That doesn’t mean I’m going to be stupid enough to keep waiting for it.”

The words punch the breath from her lungs and she staggers, sits in the pool of sheets still puddled on the mattress in this room he’s been preparing for her child.  She feels faint.  “I’m going downstairs for a bit,” he tells her shortly, and she can only nod.

It’s hours later, the windows dark and Bel still lost in thought, when he finally joins her, sidling into the other side of the bed like a schoolboy late for class.  Freddie turns his back to her, chaste, and she can only just make out his voice as he speaks.  “I’m sorry, Moneypenny.  I don’t know what came over me.”

She finds his hand in the dark and squeezes before he can slip it from her grip.  “Think nothing of it, James.”

She meets Lix at the market while hunting for a bassinet and an excuse to give Freddie a chance to lick his wounds in private.  They’ve meandered their way through the whole of the market, piles of other people’s hand-me-downs—some gently and some not-so-gently used—when Lix breaks the almost companionable silence between them.  “I’d wondered how long he would take to finally say it,” she offers, sorting through the baby bottles for the ones that aren’t chipped.  

“You knew?” Bel asks.

“Darling, anyone with eyes knew.  That boy’s been over the moon for you since before I met him.”

“Everything is wrong between us now.  I don’t—I keep wondering if I should—”

“Don’t do anything because you feel obligated to pay him for his kindness, Bel,” Lix warns her sharply.  “You’d break his heart.”

“He looks at me as if I already have.”  There’s a pile of onesies in the corner, and Bel sorts them more to have something to do with her hands than out of interest.  “I miss him, Lix.”

“Hector?”  Lix’s voice is canny, and Bel blushes.

“Him, too,” she confesses.

“You can’t have them both.”

“The worst part of it is I keep thinking back and I keep seeing times when I—times when maybe I could have changed things.  What would have happened if I hadn’t done this, or if I’d done that instead, if I’d stuck to my promises and been more observant.”

“You have a remarkable blind spot where your husband is concerned, my dear.”

“My husband,” Bel muses.

They end up returning to the flat with a crate of bottles to find Freddie painting again, shirtsleeves rolled up and his trousers tucked into his socks to keep from trailing paint across the floor.  There’s a smudge of paint along one cheekbone, the brilliant white making the green of his eyes stand out from the other side of the room.  Lix presses a kiss to the paint-free cheek and deposits the bottles on the cabinet by the sink.

“You’re not living in this mess, are you?  The fumes alone would make me loopy!” Lix declares.  Freddie scrubs at the ground with a toe, and Bel is almost overcome by a wave of fondness for him.

“The other flats are let already, and the downstairs flat can’t be leased until this one’s done,” she offers, sweeping into the room to collect Freddie’s jumper from the floor and hang it up.  “Freddie’s been working like a fiend to get this one ready for us; I keep telling him he’s got another three months, but he won’t hear of it.”

“Am I letting the one downstairs?” Freddie replies, tone sweet but eyes sharp.  “I thought we might want a place to escape every now and again.”

“And just leave the baby here by itself?” Bel returns, and he laughs.

“I’ve heard they have a hard time with stairs,” he agrees, “and locks.”  Bel laughs as well at the image he’s presented, and it’s Freddie’s turn to look fond, smearing a swipe of paint across her cheek impishly.  “Though if any baby could manage, it would be Miss Rowley’s child.”

“Mrs. Lyon’s,” Bel corrects him through a dry mouth; his eyes change then, some flicker she can’t quite understand, some rabbithole into his mind opening and closing faster than she can follow it, and he leans back—she hadn’t noticed them leaning in—to laugh again, only a little awkward, before returning to his task.  

“You could go downstairs if the smell bothers,” he offers, tipping his chin at the landlord’s ring of keys on the floor nearby.  “Let me finish here and I’ll join you for tea.”

::

“I think it’s going to be a girl, with pretty, thick curls like her mum, and smart,” he tells her one night as they lie on the floor of the nursery.  He’s finished the rest of the rooms—the master bed is a luxe, elegant purple which Freddie’d sworn was called “passionate plum”, which had led to a moment of childish snickering and Freddie’s gentle teases that perhaps he’d better tone it down with a boring blue or else they’d be raising another one as soon as she was well enough for it.  Part of her had thrilled at the ribald jokes, though more for the way his fingertips had brushed her own than for the slight, even as they’d both pretended their hands weren’t basically twining together—but this is still their favorite.  He’s painted stars on the ceiling, and they often lay considering them until well past the point that the room’s too dark for it.  Her heart feels full right now, though her body aches.  She’s got two months to go, give or take a few days, and there are fat, hormonal tears rolling down her cheeks as she stares into the darkness at a starry sky she can’t actually see.

“Little Maude?  What if it’s Gilbert?” she teases back, but Freddie freezes, going still and silent and cold next to her.  “Freddie?”

“Gilbert and Maude in the glove compartment,” he mutters, and she can hear his voice thick and crackling.  “God.  What stupid nonsense.”

“You’re right,” she agrees, voice soft.  He stiffens further as she turns, tucking her head onto his shoulder.  “Two pairs of goggles would never fit in the glove compartment, and I’ll never compromise our children’s safety.”  The hurt goes out of him like wind from a punctured tyre, rushing out on wheezing, scattered breaths until he’s chuckling, warm beneath her.  “There’s nothing for it—we’ll just have to teach them to fly.  If Superman can do it, it can’t be that hard.”

“Bel,” he murmurs against her hair and she waits for more, but his breaths are slowing, filling with sleep.  She sinks into him and lets herself fall.

She wakes to the press of his body behind her, eager and no longer quite so chaste; he groans hot breath against her ear and she shivers, curling her fingers tighter around the blankets.  He’s not awake, can’t be quite awake but still some Sunday morning doze like humming bees hanging over him.  His grip on her hip is strong, fingers flexing, roaming, pressing hard into the curl of her hip just above her thigh.  Bel feels the moment he wakes, the way his hips shudder and he stops for a moment before, unable to resist, he leans into her again gingerly.  His cock is so hot, so hard, and she’s thought of him this way—always idly, always theoretical—but the immediacy of his touch makes her spine go liquid, makes her hips tip back into his just a bit.  She can’t help the sigh that whispers out of her, can’t miss the way it makes his thrusts skip, the way it brings his panting breaths higher in his chest, less full, more frantic and gasping until he stills against her, jerking, and rolls away.  She wants to say something, wants to comfort him because she can hear the self-recrimination in his head from where she is, wants to encourage him and guide his hands beneath the blanket to her skin, but he’s so taut and tense, and before she can figure out what to say he’s already rolling out of bed, padding down the hall to the private toilet by the kitchen.  

And it’s nearly enough to lie in bed and pretend it didn’t happen, to forget the heat of his palm on her hip as he worked himself off on her arse, to let him scrub away the evidence so they can ignore this thing between them and go back to the hurt, shy distance between their hearts and miles of blankets between their bodies, except—except that it’s not, not anymore, not anywhere near enough when she has a husband who wants her, who loves her, who she loves dearly and whose touch makes her tremble the way his had just now.  They could be happy together, she thinks, truly happy, if one of them will take that step first.  

She toes down the hall to the kitchen, smoothes her nightdress and ties on an apron before setting about to make breakfast.  She hasn’t before; she hasn’t the faintest clue what she’s supposed to do beyond poking at the eggs and sliding the bread into the oven for toast.  He’s quiet when he steps in, confused straight out of the melancholy haze he’s trying so hard to project.  The yolks break, and with a snarl she starts to scramble them, crispy bits of fried white sticking up.  It’s a disaster of a breakfast, but he sits obediently as she dishes it up and puts it in front of him.

“I promise it tastes better than it looks,” she tells him, and he smiles faintly, tucking in, the dutiful husband.  Halfway through his coffee, he looks up from his plate to somewhere near her left shoulder, and bites his lip.

“You may be more comfortable downstairs from now on,” he offers, and she’s surprised by how much it hurts, though she’s expected it.  “‘t’s a real bed,” he says, “and no more crawling up out of the floor.”

“Can we bring them up here?  Yours and your dad’s?" she asks, and he starts.  “We’ll push them together so there’s room for the both of us.”  He can’t argue, just blushes and digs into his food again.  Later that day he does, spends an hour fiddling with the posts until they’re the same height and she makes them with the sheets sideways, one large bed and shared blanket, the scene so intimate it makes her flush with pleasure.  His hand curls in the small of her back when she stands at the door to their purple bedroom and stretches out her achy back.  She lets him kiss her neck below her ear, a sweet, romantic kiss, but just as she’s grabbing her courage with both fists, the buzzer goes.

It’s Hector and Marnie at the door, and Freddie’s smile slips just a little bit before coming back forced, a little strained.  Hector steps in with a tower of parcels, Marnie ducking by him to brush a kiss to Bel’s cheek that smells of violets.  For a moment she feels silly, underdressed in her own home, bloated and unattractive until Hector grins around the parcels, eyes sparkling.  It’s then she sees Freddie, the wind knocked from his sails, already stepping back to make space for Hector where suddenly Bel doesn’t want space.

“What brings you by, Mr. Madden? Mrs. Madden?” she asks, slipping her arm around Freddie’s shoulder.  He goes rabbit-shy under her arm, as doubtful as Hector’s too-wide smile, and Bel can see the silent argument that’s warring between them, her own belly the warground and prize in one.  

“We were just in the area when Hector reminded me that you lived nearby; I had a little shopping to do and thought to pick up a few essentials for your soon-to-be bundle of joy!” Marnie declares cheerily, sweeping in to tug Bel by the arm.  “We’ll just let the boys bring everything in, shall we?  I want to see your nursery—you do have a nursery, don’t you?”

She is showing Marnie the room that Freddie’d spent so much time painting yellow when Marnie touches her hand, gently drawing her from her train of thought.  “You must absolutely hate me,” Marnie whispers, brushing her fingertips along Bel’s belly.  The baby has been kicking a bit lately, and Marnie’s eyes go wide with wonder at the fluttery feeling.  “I haven’t been—I can barely—” she says, floundering for the words.

“It’s alright,” Bel says, and it feels a little bit surprising but she means it, honestly.  The boys are still carting packages up; she’d be concerned by how many of them there are, how desperate Hector is to prove he’d still be a better provider than Freddie even married to another woman, but she smiles, taking Marnie’s hand in her arm to show her.  “Look,” she says, touching the wood at the back of the crib.  There’s a scar in the wood there, barely visible under the coat of paint, but when she rubs her fingers across it, she knows it’s there.  She rubs Marnie’s fingers over it, then tugs it out a bit to show: initials, put there by a young, bored boy.  “It was his, as a child.  His father gave it to me before he passed.  Freddie spent all morning painting it to make sure it would be perfect.”

She knows Marnie can hear what she’s saying and smiles when Marnie’s eyes soften, curling at the edges around a smile.  “You look so happy.  You’re glowing like a new wife.”  She starts a little at Bel’s laugh, and they’re still laughing together when Hector and Freddie stick their heads in the door.  Hector looks around, assessing, but Marnie takes Freddie’s hands in her own.  “You’ve done such a lovely job, Mr. Lyon.  I’ll have to have you come show Hector how it’s done when it’s his turn; he is absolutely dreadful at all this handyman business.”

“It’s charming,” Hector concedes.  “Small.”

“It is just the three of us,” Bel reminds him pointedly, coaxing the group out into the parlor where she can seat them among the piles of nappies and towels, blankets and socks, all department-store-crisp and paper package corners.  There’s something manufactured about Hector and Marnie’s idea of parenthood, something nervous and careful about it, and she knows she’s no expert—she and Freddie are still fumbling, will be frantic by the time it actually happens, and some nights she still wakes in a cold sweat, limbs heavy and heart startled by the fact that this is actually happening—but she gets the feeling she’s lived with deeper awareness of it, more tangible proof.  She touches her belly—can barely keep her hands off it these days—and watches Freddie’s eyes go fond and soft.  “It’s just the right size for us,” she tells him, and he smiles.

“Well,” Marnie says into the stiff air, “Come open what we’ve brought you!  It’s everything a new mother could possibly need.”

“We can’t accept all of this, of course,” Freddie tells her, but Marnie blusters over him.

“Of course you must have it.  What would we do with baby things?” she asks gaily, hands fluttering over a bib as she lays it out on her lap.  “Now, isn’t this one just darling?  You see, there’s a daisy in the corner here—”

For some reason, Bel doesn’t expect Hector to follow her into the kitchen when she’s making tea later—doesn’t expect Marnie to let him, she supposes.  His hands are hot through the cotton of her dress; she shifts away from him, sidling around the cupboard to fetch the sugar.

“Are we not going to talk about this?” he asks brusquely.

“Do you need to touch my waist when we do?” she returns, frowning at the sugar bowl.

“Are you angry?”

“A little bit.”

“I couldn’t come without her.”

“I think we’re in this situation because you couldn’t with her.”

“Don’t be crass,” he says, turning away.

“I’m not angry because of Marnie,” she tells him, reaching down to lift the tray; it’s heavy, wobbling when she tries to heft it up, and he takes it from her, stopping in the kitchen.

“Then why?”

“Because you’re not here to support me, you’re here to taunt Freddie that you had me first.”

“So he’s finally had you?”

“Not yet,” she confesses.  Her cheeks are burning.

“Yet?”  Damn him.  Damn him for listening, and her face burns brighter.

“Yet.  If he wants—”

“Oh, he will.  He’s been so very patient.”  It’s breathtaking how much of an arsehole Hector can be when he’s hurting, and if she didn’t spy the wet red at the corner of his eye, didn’t recognize the way he can’t keep the edges of his mouth in that wry little smile he thinks is so superior-looking when he’s joking, she’d think he meant it.  He means it to hurt, anyway, and she turns on her heel, stalking out of the room.

Hector follows, contrite, and Marnie and Freddie look up from their conversation, conspirators caught.  “Good,” Marnie says abruptly, a note of false cheer in her voice.  “Hector’s making himself useful.”

“Are you alright, Moneypenny?” Freddie asks, shifting to make room when she sinks into the sofa next to him.  He curls dotingly around her, and she sees not for the first time the tender world in his eyes when she tucks her temple against his shoulder.

“Just a bit tired, James.”  His arm is warm around her shoulders, comfortable.  It isn’t long before Hector and Marnie are making their excuses, preparing to leave, but Bel—she can’t let them leave without saying—without actually saying—

“I.  Hector,” she starts.  It’s impossible to get out, with this feeling that the world is balancing on a pin, that whatever she says here may ruin everything.  “I did love you.  Do.  I do want you to know that,” she says, and she can feel Freddie trying to go cold and defensive beside her.  “And Marnie, I’m sorry.  What I did was unkind to you.  I apologize.

“I know that this isn’t something we will ever—can never—talk about, not honestly, but if it helps you to know that, I am.  And Freddie—”  How can she explain how she feels now?  How can she put it into words?  She lets her forehead drop to his shoulder and the tears come, hot and treacherous, leaving her feeling silly, overwhelmed and overwrought and every bad stereotype of a pregnant woman until he dips his head, concerned, and she knows—his lips are softer than she’s imagined, and she’s imagined….  Marnie gasps, covers her lips with a gloved hand, and Hector’s jaw flexes, but Freddie freezes, lets her kiss him a moment before pressing in, his mouth eager and strangely chaste, chasing kisses across her upper lip until he’s caught it between his own, gentle and confused and eyes bright with longing, unwilling to close as if this moment will disappear if they do.  She can feel him trembling beneath her hands, and when she looks up, his hope is writ across his face as if in words.  It’s Freddie that pulls away, Bel that chases, and she comes back to herself with a mortified, dazed squeak.  She wants to touch her face in wonder, to know if this emotion sits as obviously on her face as it does on every part of her.  He ducks in again, presses kisses to the corner of her mouth and she lets herself twine around him even as he pulls back to laugh breathlessly.

“Oh,” Marnie all but coos, breaking them up to blink at the fact that they’re in the parlor at midday, guests sitting uncomfortable in the chairs across the table.  Hector raises a brow as if to say, _Really_? and Bel laughs, at first small and squeaking and then hard enough that Freddie has to hold her, cupping her head to his chest.  There’s the familiar smell of him, a smell that makes her feel safe and just a bit sleepy, associated with their bed and the way he lets her touch him when they are almost asleep.

“We can go,” Hector offers wryly.

“Perhaps for the best,” Freddie agrees, and the laughter in his voice makes Bel proud, proud that she put it there, proud that he’s happy, proud that he feels at least some shadow of this joy that’s come over her.

“You’ll call us when the baby’s born, won’t you?” Marnie asks unexpectedly.  Her hands are wrapped nervously around her pocketbook, and Hector brushes her shoulder.

“Did you want that?” Bel asks, confused.

“Of course.  I want to be the first auntie to meet her,” Marnie insists.

“I told you,” Freddie says, laughing.

“Freddie wants a girl,” Bel explains.

“I’m never wrong,” Marnie tells them, her eyes bright.

Later in bed, the sheets are all wrong and Freddie laughs, curling around her to keep her warm.  They’ll go shopping in the morning, begin taking the first real steps toward building their life together—the small ones, the ones no one thinks about before they’re suddenly buying new sheets, suddenly picking up his favorite biscuits or her favorite cheap wine from the corner store, suddenly fitting each other into the small spaces that have always only ever been lonely—but for tonight he’s got her tucked into the crook of his elbow in their short-sheeted bed, kissing slow and lazy just because he can now, with his fingers on her jaw and the heavy-tender weight of her breast.  Freddie’s worked a knee between her thighs, nudges his erection against the swell of her lower belly as if he’s still shy to find himself in bed with his wife.  Bel lets him rut aimlessly, lets him mouth at her lips and throat and chin and ears until she wants with a desire that’s as much giving as it is taking.  He won’t put it in—even though she assures him it’s safe, he’s protective and willful—but he lets her pet and stroke him until he’s shaking and she ends on her back as he licks into her until her legs feel as though they’ll tremble right out of their joints.  After, she can taste herself on his shy, wondering kisses, and it tastes like devotion, like love.  His shoulder is narrow, bony beneath her ear, and perfect.

::

A month and a half later, two weeks early, Charles is born.  He has his father’s warm, brown eyes.  Freddie teases her that she’d be willful enough to have a boy after all his talk of girls, and when he kisses her tired, sweaty brow, she just laughs and promises the next one.

**Author's Note:**

> So of course the obvious, biggest difference in this one is that in this universe, it's _Marnie_ who's barren, rather than Hector who's impotent. This whole thing spawned from an idle thought of "what if?": What if Bel had gotten pregnant from her affair with Hector? Everything spun from there!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [a remarkable blind spot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1653071) by [beili](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beili/pseuds/beili)




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